What Colorism Feels Like as an Indian-American Woman

It’s been 11 years, and I still remember the day I decided I was cursed.

I had just started kindergarten, and we were working on self portraits in art class. I rummaged around in my 24-pack Crayola box until I found what I was looking for: the apricot color, worn down to a stub from frequent use. I had barely started scribbling away at my self-portrait when the girl next to me snatched the crayon from my hand.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “That’s not your skin color!”

I stared at her. And then, as I looked at the apricot crayon in my hand, the weight of what she was saying sunk in all at once. Before I realized what I was doing, I was pawing frantically through the crayon box, trying desperately to find a hint of my own skin in its myriad colors, but all I could find was a dirty, tree-trunk brown. I felt abandoned and cursed by the brown-skinned gods. I ended up leaving my face uncolored, and when the teacher hung the portraits up in the hall, my paper-white effigy looked like a ghost. And in some ways, I felt like one — uncertain, uncomfortable in my skin, and invisible.

It’s been 11 years, and I still think that there are some things that you have to be a girl of color to understand. It’s the shame of hairy arms and dark skin in the middle school locker room, the impenetrable wall of melanin separating you from the models you see on TV. It’s the time you watched Snow White on DVR and realized that you were not the fairest of them all — in fact, you were far from it.

I’m not alone in these experiences.

I’m not alone in these experiences. Millions of Indian women face rampant colorism — the problematic concept that darker skin is inherently less desirable — both in India and in America. It takes many forms: for example, the promotion of skin-lightening products, the stigmatization of dark-skinned women, and the fetishization of light-skinned people, all of which can be harmful to our sense of self. And it’s not just a South Asian problem; the color line divides populations of many different places, from East Asia to America. While I’m lucky to have grown up in a family that made me feel beautiful, it was impossible to escape the projections of colorism around me: the fair-skinned models on TV ads and Fair and Lovely skin-lightening creams.

It was entirely by accident that I discovered the #UnfairAndLovely movement on social media, but it changed everything for me. As I scrolled through the images of strong, unapologetic, beautiful dark-skinned women, I felt like I had finally found my color in the crayon box. I felt like I finally belonged. This is why representation is so important — because for the first time, I felt powerful and validated for who I was. For far too long, women of color have been silenced, as much by society as by ourselves. We’re practically invisible in some of the most powerful institutions of society: government, the media, and entertainment, which erases the richly diverse potential of women of color to feel empowered. When you’re told that you’re ugly for too long, you start to believe it. When you’re told you’re powerless, it starts to come true. And when it comes to changing attitudes and learning to embrace yourself, strength in numbers is important.

For far too long, women of color have been silenced, as much by society as by ourselves.

I’m infinitely grateful to the fearless, forward-thinking women of color that are reclaiming their melanin in order to combat colorism worldwide. They’re harnessing the growing platform of social media to launch powerful movements, linking together beautiful dark women with hashtags like #MelaninMagic and #FlexingMyComplexion. #UnfairAndLovely, in particular, is a bold challenge to the reigning “Fair and Lovely” culture that seeks to whitewash women into conformity. In a society that profits off of colored women’s sense of inferiority, a simple hashtag is a powerful symbol. It is a symbol of change.

Like many Indian-American women, it took me years to unlearn the colorist attitudes that are institutionalized in my society: the backhanded compliments that we were “pretty for dark girls,” the lack of representation, and the fear of summer tans. These attitudes always felt uncomfortable, but we learned quite literally to lighten up and move on. Colorism was sometimes cast as the price we paid to be part of the American Dream. Compared to more blatant examples of racism, it seemed like a relative bargain.

But, somehow, I never bought into that. Like many other brown girls born in America, I was tired of not rocking the boat. The problem was, I didn’t know where to start, or how to make my voice heard. For young people of color, social media is an incredibly powerful tool because it allows us to share our experiences and start conversations. Through mass movements like #UnfairAndLovely, we can harness the power that society has systematically sought to keep from us.

Through mass movements like #UnfairAndLovely, we can harness the power that society has systematically sought to keep from us.

But finding belonging is only the first step in a journey that I continue to take, and I’m still filled with questions and doubt. When I pass by strangers on the street, I sometimes wonder which feature of mine is the first that they see. Whether it’s my father's big dark eyes, or my mother's unruly wavy mane, or the eternal-summer-tan I share with my grandmothers — the traits European scientists once identified as classifications for the Dravidian race, the traits I wear as signs of my heritage.

These strangers might assume that because I am dark, I am ethnic and multilingual and "exotic," much in the way that henna is exotic — enough to give you a multicultural flair, but normal enough to be accepted. They might align me with a culture they can idolize, but never quite understand— just like I couldn’t always understand why these incurably brown features were passed along to a girl who grew up on PBS Kids and Mott’s applesauce, who craved nothing more than to be pale and blonde and perfect.

Today, I am none of those things. I am still the color of dirt, as well as the color of coffee-dipped gold and raw brown sugar and sun-baked honey. I am unfair and lovely and everything in between. But within my skin — or maybe beyond that — I am more. I want to change the world because of my identity, not in spite of it. Every day, my melanin launches merciless war against a world that seeks to beat it down. There’s something inherently revolutionary about loving ourselves the way we are. It’s a hard battle, but it’s a battle worth fighting.